One slice from the blade of one of those great swords, thinks Cachorra, trying to restrain herself. One slice. That’s all it would take.
‘My mistress wishes to know what they are saying?’ she asks wearily, turning to their guide, the lad who led them to safety after the wreck, who has been their constant protector.
‘They say that only now will they believe the myth of the Merrow,’ he says with a grin. Then, seeing the look of perplexity on Cachorra’s face, he adds, ‘The Merrow is a woman of the sea, who comes onto the land to steal away the hearts of men. They also want to know if all the other women who live at the bottom of the ocean have skins the colour of a chestnut.’
‘Then tell them this,’ says Cachorra with a bright laugh. ‘I am this woman they speak of. And I am dark because I come from stronger rootstock than their pale oaks.’
In the courtyard beyond the gatehouse four men stand in conversation. As Cachorra approaches, one of them turns and steps forward, not so much in greeting as with curiosity. He is a tall, imposing man in a quilted jerkin hung with studded plates of armour, each no larger than a playing card. The metal moves with the action of his body, like the skin of the armadillo that Cachorra had so wanted to become when the Ciguayo took her. In age, she would place him close to fifty. He has a thoughtful face, proud and well bearded, but with an underlying sadness to it. His dark hair is receding, leaving a deep widow’s peak down the centre of his brow, as though his skull has been cleaved in two. For a man who has come close to wresting Ireland from the English, he looks like as though he has tasted only bitter regret.
Their guide kneels, beckoning Cachorra to do the same. Of the three, only Constanza remains upright as he announces in his bravest voice: ‘His Grace the O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone!’
It is a fair day on which to bid England’s fairest earl God speed. London wakes at cockcrow to a bright, clear sky. At St Paul’s Cross and in churches throughout the city prayers are offered for Robert Devereux’s protection and the success of his great enterprise in Ireland. By the time the bells ring out the second hour of the afternoon, a great throng of Londoners has gathered in the Strand beyond Temple Bar. The street vendors are making a killing, selling oysters, baked apples and hot pies. The scent of battle is already in the air: the sizzling fat of roasted mutton in mortal combat with the sour reek of fresh horse-dung. Whenever someone comes out of Essex House – even a humble messenger or a servant – a great cheer rises from the crowd. No one appears troubled by the grey clouds that are beginning to drift across the sky.
On Bankside, Ned and Rose have chosen not to attend the earl’s departure. Overt displays of wealth and assumed glory do not sit comfortably with Ned. But a parade is a parade. Rose convinces him to join her by the southern gatehouse of London Bridge, to watch Sir Oliver Henshawe’s company march up Long Southwark and across the bridge to join up with the earl’s column on the Strand. Henshawe himself appears martial enough, riding beneath his banner – the boar’s head against a red chevron rippling from his lance – though he’s too pretty for Ned’s liking. Barnabas Vyves struts a few paces behind Henshawe’s horse, his one eye glaring fiercely, his lank grey hair blowing about his shoulders. Ned wonders how far he’ll go before he leaves the column. He’s sure Vyves has no intention of exposing himself to any real danger.
Henshawe’s company is less impressive than its captain: the same ill-fed, awkward farm boys, discharged apprentices, rescued vagabonds and paroled jailbirds that Ned has observed before, though they have just about managed to learn the complexities of marching in step. But the people who have come out of their houses to watch them pass seem contented by the sight.
On the Strand young Bruno squeals with excitement, jabbing his stubby little fingers at the gatehouse of the imposing mansion that he can see from his vantage point atop Nicholas’s shoulders.
As the church bells fall silent, four trumpeters in bright orange tunics announce that the moment has come. A troop of pikemen in voluminous trunk-hose and steel breastplates march out and wheel into the Strand, their pikes waving like the masts of a little fishing fleet trying to keep their station in a heavy swell.
And here he comes!
A great roar goes up, sending the birds bursting out of the trees. Astride a charger that seems intent on taking flight with them, its head bucking, the spume splashing as it mouths the bit, sits Robert Devereux, the Lord Lieutenant himself, the Earl Marshal of England, the queen’s champion – even if her favour has palled a little of late in the face of his constant pleas for advancement.
Clad in his finest armour of polished black plate, etched and gilded with intricate patterns that seem to swirl with a life of their own in the fading sunlight, Essex looks as though he is off to a joust. On his head is a handsome burgonet, the visor raised to allow the common folk to gaze upon his features in suitable admiration. From its crest a plume of white swan feathers dances in the freshening breeze. He is younger than Nicholas by a few years, yet he looks like a man who has had long enough on earth to conquer almost every part of it. Now he is off to claim the remainder.
Beside him – and almost as grandly mounted and attired – are his closest aides: the Earl of Southampton and Sir Christopher Blount, his stepfather. They make a show to stir the heart of every man, woman and child in the crowd.
Except for Bianca, who has never understood why men so enjoy the prospect of war. And Nicholas, who knows its true cost.
As he watches the spectacle, and the first drops of rain begin to fall, he can’t prevent his memory taking him back to his time at grammar school, and in particular a Latin lesson. For weeks afterwards he had been unable to walk through the woods near Barnthorpe without experiencing a fit of the terrors. Because the lesson had involved translating a passage from Tacitus: the historian’s account of the fate that befell the Roman general Publius Quinctilius Varus, who marched his army into the Teutoburg Forest to subdue the rebellious Germanic tribes, just as England’s new Caesar intends to do in Ireland.
Varus had marched in with three full legions, Nicholas remembers reading. An invincible force, or so Varus had believed. But he had been wrong. Because sixteen centuries later their bones are still there, mouldering beneath the dripping foliage.
PART 3
… Greate dammadge to her Majestie…
A View of the Present State of Ireland
EDMUND SPENSER
27
It is the first day of June, and it has been raining solidly for a week. The rain seems to know in advance where to find the eyeholes in a gaberdine cloak, or the way through the points of a quilted jerkin. It rusts the studs, hinges and swivel-hooks of plate armour, soaks the leather liners so that Bianca and her women can scarcely gather enough melilot and ground moss – bruised and boiled in water – to treat the chafing. Caesar’s army no longer marches. It stumbles, slips and staggers. Nothing dries. Cord matches will not stay lit, so that when the rebels launch an ambush – a skill in which they seem to have been tutored by the Devil himself – they cannot be driven off with shot from the matchlocks and calivers. Instead they must be held at bay with the longbow, or else fought at close hand with sword, pike and poleaxe. The air itself seems drowned. It is becoming a torment without mercy: heartless, implacable and unconcerned whether you are an earl or a common horse-boy. It has no regard whether you are made of wool, leather, wood, steel or flesh. It will rot, rust and reduce you, and keep on raining. It is the second Flood. And this time no one has a place on the Ark.